HUMAN trafficking in South Africa is a serious problem and warrants intervention on all fronts, according to a study released at a National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) conference on human trafficking, which ended in Cape Town yesterday.

The report, carried out by the Human Sciences Research Council, says victims are mostly women, girls and boys trafficked for a variety of purposes, including prostitution, pornography, domestic servitude, forced labour, begging, criminal activity (including drug trafficking), and trafficking for the removal of body parts (or muti).

Young boys are trafficked to smuggle drugs and for other criminal activities.

Conducted on behalf of the NPA, the study identified a number of trafficking flows into South Africa.

South Africa is a destination country for intercontinental trafficking for people (mainly women) from Thailand, Philippines, India, China, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia and the Ukraine. The main point of entry of this trafficking stream is OR Tambo Airport.

People are trafficked from within Africa across the country’s land borders, mostly from Mozambique and Zimbabwe but also Malawi, Swaziland and Lesotho. Longer-distance trafficking involve victims trafficked from the DRC, Angola, Rwanda, Kenya, Cameroon, Nigeria and Somalia. All documented cases in this last category are women trafficked for both sexual and labour exploitation.

The largest movement of trafficked people is domestic – from rural areas to cities. Women, girls and boys, and to a lesser extent men, are the targets of traffickers for prostitution and for the same purposes listed. The albino community was identified as vulnerable to human traffickers for the harvesting of body parts.

Bloemfontein - A 77-year-old woman who was attacked by four men with spades, was still in a critical condition, a Free State health official said on Wednesday.

Francina Van Vuuren, her husband, Boet, 80, who is in a wheelchair, and two sons Marius, 44, also in a wheelchair, and Marthinus, 35, and nephew Juan, 13, were attacked by the men with spades and knives in Jagersfontein on Sunday night.

Free State health spokesperson Jabu Mbalula said Francina van Vuuren was still in the intensive care unit and in a critical condition after being admitted on Monday.

It was alleged that Francina went to check the back door of her home when she heard someone knocking, but was surprised by four men storming in.

Police spokesperson Thandi Mbambo said the woman was hit with a spade and her hands were tied with wire.

The young boy, who was in another room, was assaulted before the men moved to the sitting room where Boet van Vuuren and his two sons were.

Broken limbs

Police said the men demanded money from one of the sons and when he refused he was hit several times on his head with a spade.

"The father and the other son who were in wheelchairs were also hit several times," Mbambo said.

Police said the father eventually gave in and went to fetch money from a safe.

The men fled the scene with a .22 revolver, six cellphones, digital cameras and R38 000 in cash.

Police said Francina and her son Marius were initially transferred to Pelonomi hospital and both underwent operations for broken limbs.

AT least two of the armed gang involved in the bloody bank heist in Port Elizabeth on Wednesday have been linked to other robberies in the Nelson Mandela Bay area.

Five robbers died in a shoot-out with police following a high-speed car chase after the Absa Bank in KwaDwesi’s Siyabunga shopping complex was robbed. One suspect was wounded and another arrested outside the bank.

Police said details surrounding the robbery were still sketchy, but the robbers were believed to be from Zwide and Kwazakhele.

A senior police source said: “One of the men who was fatally wounded and one who had been arrested are known for their involvement in armed robberies. One of the men killed at the scene was a known robber with a pending case but had not been active for a while.”

The police source said one of the other men killed in the heist had been arrested in 1998 for possession of an illegal firearm and had served time in jail.

Police have identified two of the men killed as Kholifile Patrick Fulela, 57, and Phakamile Fyril, 43.

“Another suspect is only known to us by his alias, Doc, and unfortunately we haven’t established his real name or age yet,” they said.

“Despite an already intense investigation, police have not yet managed to identify the other two (who) were killed.”

Police spokesman Captain Andre Beetge said the matter was being dealt with by the organised crime unit, which was still trying to identify the other two dead men.

The two men arrested were aged 54 and 43. “The 54-year-old is the man who shot at the policeman outside the bank and was then shot and wounded in the leg,” another police source said.

Their names could not be released until they had appeared in court.

Beetge said the two arrested men would appear in court today or on Monday.

Pietermaritzburg - The two men who murdered Pietermaritzburg hotelier Mark Truter were jailed for an effective 25 years by the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Pietermaritzburg on Thursday.

Judge Isaac Madondo sentenced Wiseman Ndlovu, 29, and Sphelele Ngubo, 28, to 25 years each for the murder, 10 years of which would run concurrently with an additional 15 years each for robbery with aggravating circumstances.

Truter, 38, who suffered from cystic fibrosis, had duct tape wound so tightly around his mouth and nose that he suffocated to death.

Madondo found there were substantial and compelling circumstances to warrant a more lenient sentence than the prescribed term of life for a murder during a robbery.

They were both first offenders and had not intended to murder Truter when they went to his bedroom and tied him up.

However, Madondo found no circumstances warranting a lesser sentence for the aggravated robbery.

Truter's mother Paulette found him dead on the floor of his bedroom in March 2008.

Tricked him

She testified earlier that the tape was so tightly wound round his nose and mouth that she could not get a finger under it.

She believed it would have suffocated a healthy person who could breathe freely.

Ndlovu and Ngubo and a third person used a disc supplied by Rider Ndlovu, a former barman who has since died, to open the hotel's security gate.

The attackers went upstairs to Truter's bedroom and tricked him into unlocking his door, by telling them there was an electricity problem.

They attacked him, bound his hands behind his back and (bound) his feet together before winding the tape round his face.

They took keys from his bedroom and went to the kitchen where they unlocked the safe, taking R35 726, two cameras and other items.

Bloemfontein - Four men were arrested in connection with a gruesome attack of a 77-year-old woman and her family at Jagersfontein with spades, police said on Thursday.

The men, who were arrested on Wednesday, would appear in the Jagersfontein Magistrate's Court next Wednesday on charges of house robbery and attempted murder.

Francina van Vuuren, her husband, Boet, 80, who is in a wheelchair, and two sons Marius, 44, also in a wheelchair, and Marthinus, 35, and nephew Juan, 13, were attacked by the men with spades and knives in Jagersfontein on Sunday night.

It was alleged that Francina went to check the back door of her home when she heard someone knocking, but was surprised by four men storming in.

Police spokesperson Thandi Mbambo said the woman was hit with a spade and her hands were tied with wire.

The young boy, who was in another room, was assaulted before the men, aged between 19 and 26 years, moved to the sitting room where Boet and his two sons were.

The men were hit with spades until Boet gave in and opened a safe. On Thursday, Mbambo said the mother and two sons were still recovering at the Pelonomi Hospital in Bloemfontein.

They were taken to hospital for broken limbs and head injuries.

Mbambo said the men that were arrested were traced to a house in Jagersfontein and arrested.